


Sunrise and Sunset

by Lunatasha



Series: HitsuKarin Week 2014 [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 15:31:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1433581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunatasha/pseuds/Lunatasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toshiro had never been a heavy sleeper. He had hated it when he was a child, often struggling to get a full night sleep with the background noises of Rukongai. He tolerated it when he became a Gotei 13 officer, as the ability to get up quickly proved itself useful time and time again. It was only now, waking up to the sounds of his 10 month old babbling away, that he actually appreciated it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunrise and Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> My fic for the second day of the 2014 HitsuKarin week on tumblr, Sunrise and Sunset. It's pretty short and kinda rushed, but I like it.

Toshiro had never been a heavy sleeper. He had hated it when he was a child, often struggling to get a full night sleep with the background noises of Rukongai. He tolerated it when he became a Gotei 13 officer, as the ability to get up quickly proved itself useful time and time again. It was only now, waking up to the sounds of his 10 month old babbling away, that he actually appreciated it.

Toshiro sat up slowly, making sure he didn’t wake up Karin, and looked over to the cot against the wall, opposite his bed. He smiled as he watched his little girl playing quite happily by herself, with the few soft toys that they kept at the foot of the tiny bed. Babies develop a lot in their first year, and currently their child was going through a phase where she literally woke up at the crack of dawn every morning.

He had to admit, Toshiro was a little grouchy the first morning it happened, and all he wanted was for the little one to go back to sleep so he could. But much to his surprise, he learned to like the early mornings quite quickly. It was a good sign in terms of their baby’s development, as she slept through the night now and didn’t feel the need to cry when she woke up any more. Getting up so early meant he had plenty of time to get ready for the day, at quite a leisurely pace. And most importantly, he got more time to spend with his daughter.

Given the early time she woke up, the baby was often sound asleep for the night by 8, which meant Toshiro, who got into the house after work at about half 6, didn’t get much time with her. Whereas now, at 10 past 5 in the morning with yellow streaks painting themselves across the sky, he had hours until he had to get to work. Gently shifting himself off the bed, pausing for a moment to pull the covers back over Karin, Toshiro made his way to the cot.

His daughter had caught sight of Toshiro walking over and stared up at him with bright turquoise eyes before smiling and pulling herself up to a standing position, tiny hands gripping the cot railing tightly.

Toshiro smiled back and whispered. “Good morning to you too.”

The ten month old babbled back at him, not quite being able to form full words yet. Toshiro glanced over at Karin, who had stirred, before lifting the child over the cot railing and securing her in his arms. “Come on, let’s go downstairs, where we won’t wake your mother.”

Once downstairs, Toshiro walked into the kitchen. “You hungry yet?” Watching his daughter try to grab at the fruit bowl made him smile. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He carefully put the child in her highchair and grabbed a chopping board from a cupboard. “Hmm. You had bananas for breakfast yesterday didn’t you? Should we have apples today?” He asked, while holding up one.

Receiving no discernible argument, Toshiro grabbed a knife and started carefully peeling the skin off an apple (the little girl in front of him always refused to eat apples if they had skin on them) while nodding along with whatever his daughter was murmuring about, as it was good to encourage her to speak.

When she stopped ‘speaking’ for a while, Toshiro got up and grabbed her bowl and spoon from the drying rack and sat back down at the table loading the bowl up with tiny apple pieces. He put the bowl on the tray of the highchair and handed his daughter the spoon. She started to feed herself, albeit with a little difficulty, but she wouldn’t learn without practice, so Toshiro left her to it and cut up the remaining half of the apple into sections and started eating himself.

He smiled as he watched his little one attempt to chew with four teeth, while smiling at him. After watching home videos of Karin as a toddler being very smiley and giggly, he knew that his daughter took after her, a thought which made him smile. It seemed the only thing his daughter inherited from him were his eyes, and an eagerness to learn (at the moment she was always trying to walk whenever she could, even though it tired her out).

Toshiro thought he could never love someone as much as he loved Karin, but the child in front of him proved him wrong. Sunsets used to be his favourite time of day, due to the many evenings he spent watching it as he talked to Karin. But, as Toshiro thought with a smile, sunrises were quickly becoming another favourite time of day for him.


End file.
